Bush admin to open almost 360,000 acres of Utah public lands to drilling

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced Tuesday that over 359,000 acres of public lands in Utah will be up for lease in December, some of which have “wilderness characteristics” or are “in the vicinity of national parks or monuments.” Meanwhile, the Government Accountability Office released a report criticizing the Bush administration’s public-lands leasing process, saying it encourages oil and gas companies to hoard leases.